Scary time

It's Halloween today, and thus Hallow's Eve will soon end in Azeroth.

I haven't done much for the event, aside from grabbing some candy at the inns. I guess I'm just not motivated. Going after the Headless Horseman requires a group, and though I could try to find a PUG, I'd really rather level my characters.

I guess I just figure I'll get a shot at all those achievements later, and if they're one time only then they're exactly the kind of achievements that I despise and won't be getting anyway.

It would be cool to fly around on the Headless Horseman's mount though.

I've also been pretty busy this week with other stuff, and that has kept me away from playing. By the time I get done with everything and finally get home to relax it's so late that starting up WoW would be pointless. Finding only half an hour here and there in this game really isn't worth it, and with my affinity for losing track of time I know I'd stay up way to late if I started playing so close to bedtime.

Next week shouldn't be so hectic, and since it's supposed to rain this weekend (yes, California does get rain), I should be able to get some quality WoW time in.

Just two more weeks until the expansion. Are you excited yet?

A change of pace

For the most part I can assume that most readers of this blog have at least one level 70. That being said, I think even if you don't, you probably know enough about the game that you will understand this topic.

Blizzard really has a knack for including well thought out game mechanics, and really thinking through how the game will be played and how to keep the players interested. Even though the level cap seems so far away when you first start out, there is no lack of a means to get there that will keep you motivated.

We start out in our race's starting zone and the levels fly by. On your first character it seemed to take a while, but now you can probably get past level 10 within a couple hours. At this point you also get your first class specific quest and it usually gives you a new ability.

Moving on to the next zone the leveling goes a little slower, but you have a lot more quests to do, and those help keep you occupied. Storylines start developing more, and if the game hadn't sucked you in already it probably is starting to now. This zone lasts roughly another 10 levels and by the time you leave you are around level 20 and many classes get another class specific quest.

Now the game has you. You've spent talent points, learned lots of new skills, and are about to be heading into contested zones (where the other faction can attack you on PvP servers). You also have some options here. You can move to the closest zone, or there are a few other zones in the same level range you can choose from.

There aren't really more quests for you at this point than previously, but with more zones to choose from you can actually quest in multiple zones to make up for it and gain those levels. It's nice to have a change of scenery, and you will be getting them more often as you go.

This tends to be the way it goes through the zones from now on. Some zones are larger than others, and span wider ranges of levels. STV is considered a level 30-45 zone whereas going into the higher levels you run into Silithus which is only for levels 55-60.

Why make the higher level zones span less levels? Easy. That change in scenery I was talking about earlier? Well since the amount of experience needed to reach the next level increases as you go, you will be gaining levels very slowly compared to when you first started. Sure you tend to find more quests to do, but they don't completely make up for the slower leveling rate.

But it doesn't stop there. You also have many more zones to choose from, and the increased speed of your mount makes them feasible options. Finished Winterspring and still need to gain a couple levels? Head over to Silithus and finish those up. On the same token you could also go to the Burning Steppes or EPL, it's your choice.

The Burning Crusade continued this trend with Outland. If you played to 70 you know what I'm talking about. The leveling is much slower. Just look how many quests those zones offer, and instead of the 5 or so levels you would have gained before 60 you only gain 2.

Outland has 7 zones, and you only need to 10 more levels (12 if you went in at 58). This is because it takes so long to gain a level that by the time you tired of the zone you have only gained 2. Luckily, at this point you are ready to move on to the next zone where you can start the process all over again.

Wrath of the Lich King has even more zones, and still only 10 more levels, meaning you still probably spend the same amount of time in each zone, but they will give you even less levels.

This isn't some sort of trickery on the part of Blizzard to keep us into the game. It's about smart game design. What fun would it be if we were still spending 5 levels per zone? That would mean each expansion would only have 2 or 3 new zones, and is that really worth all the waiting?

What I'm really saying is that after seeing how this all works it makes perfect sense, but for me it only makes sense after the fact. I guess that's why I don't work for Blizzard...that and computer programming is much too tedious for me.

When good achievements go bad

Before I say anything, I want you to know that I like the implementation of the achievement system. I think it gives players like me a chance to make some accomplishments in the game that we would otherwise be playing just to play.

Obviously we won't get everything, or even close to everything, but it's the fact that we have something to work towards besides just leveling, and many times it doesn't send us too far out of the way to do it.

There is one problem that I ran into, and that's the achievement that rewards you for getting exalted with all the factions.

I ran into this multiple times recently on my shaman as I made my way through Felwood and EPL. The only thing I really wanted to do in Felwood was get Timbermaw Hold to not attack me on sight. The easy way to do this is to do the two quests that have you kill other furbolgs, one at a southern camp and one right by the entrance to Timbermaw Hold.

Normally this area isn't very busy, especially since the rewards for getting exalted were only worth getting when the level cap was 60. Now with the new achievement I ran into lots of 70s running around the area farming rep. This not only made it hard to complete the few quests that I actually needed to do, but turned the furbolg camps into a war zone.

I didn't get messed with too much, but there was one troll hunter that had it in for me. It was mostly 70s from each side fighting, but I got stuck in the crossfire more than a few times.

On top of that, it was very difficult to find mobs because they were being killed so fast, and when you get to the end and only need a few specific mobs, it gets very frustrating.

Moving on to EPL, I saw a lot of Argent Dawn rep farming going on. That zone is much more spread out in terms of where you can find mobs to give you the items you need for rep, but there are certain areas that are more heavily populated, and thats where everyone goes.

It wasn't so much trouble with being ganked, but having to wait for respawns, or having the mob you need be tagged right before you get there and having to look for another one or wait for a respawn.

Probably the most annoying thing I ran into wasn't even about rep. It was in north EPL at the zombie troll temple where you have to kill a specific unique mob for a quest. I made my way through the mobs to get there and find a blood elf paladin farming items. I assume it was some kind of mojo or something that those trolls drop.

Regardless of what it was, she was rounding up groups of trolls and consecrating them down. I had to wait through about 5 respawns of the one mob I needed to kill because she kept tagging him before me, and the respawn was pretty slow.

He never came after me, just acted like I wasn't there, but he probably knew exactly what I was going after and was probably having fun watching me get frustrated but not able to do anything about it.

It's too bad there really isn't any way around this. It's the same with farming any item. There tends to be a certain place that is the best place to get it and everyone goes there, and then they fight over it, especially on PvP.

On a PvE server they can just keep stealing it from you and you can't do anything about it unless they flag for PvP. It's a similar situation on a PvP server if you are much lower level and they don't attack you. Either way it's frustrating, especially when you are there for a quest and you know they're just farming rep.

I guess I'll just have to suck it up and just know that I'm going to be running into this situation more and more now.

Dead broke

Hit level 30 on my mage last night, got the achievement, yay. I think it's silly to make leveling an achievement. It was basically an achievement before, and adding it to the list isn't going to motivate people any more than it was before. Just seems unnecessary, but I'll take the free achievement.

This also means I can get my mount. Well, I could get my mount if I had enough money. Yes, I know they reduced the cost of the training, but training skills every two levels really takes its toll on your gold supply.

I had about 4g when I hit 30, not nearly enough for the 45g I need to train the riding skill and buy a mount. I figured I'd go to the mage trainer and learn some new spells since I wouldn't be getting my mount anytime soon anyway.

Well, I ended up only getting half the spells I could before I ran out of money. It's very discouraging, and I know it really doesn't help that the mage is a tailor/enchanter. That's right, no gathering professions, and since most cloth armor I make gets disenchanted, I don't really make any money from either professions.

Once I level enchanting enough I should be able to sell off excess enchanting materials that I no longer need to level up my skill. I'm not to that point yet, but I'll probably be leveling inscription/herbalism with one of my other Horde characters so they can send scrolls and I can give all my characters enchants, and then sell the rest, all while leveling up the skill. Will people even buy lower level enchants anymore?

The mage pretty much caught up with his rested XP bonus, so it looks like the warlock will be up again, then I might switch over to the pally.

It looks like the warrior switched places with the pally on who gets leveled last. I don't really know why. It's not that I don't want to go rampaging around the Barrens with my big Tauren warrior. I guess I just find the pally more interesting at the moment, but that doesn't mean I won't change my mind if I decide I was wrong.

Collecting heads

I managed to hop on my mage for a while this weekend, and he's almost level 30 now, but probably won't have enough money for his mount yet. I was never very good at making money in this game, mainly because I don't go to the AH very often.

Most items I pick up get vendored if I can't use them, unless it's a blue or better. What I might need to do is get an AH addon that will tell me what kind of prices certain items can get. I occasionally sell cloth, but I usually need it to level tailoring or first aid.

It also comes down to time restraints. I'd rather just vendor stuff when my bag fills up rather than take the time to go to the AH, and since my bags at this level aren't very big I tend to run out of room very quickly so I really can't just hold onto something until the next time I end up in a major city.

But enough talk about money troubles.

I finished up Stonetalon pretty quickly and decided to go to Hillsbrad next to get some of the easier stuff done there. I went to the farms and killed lots of peasants, plus the various other NPCs they wanted me to kill. Not only that, but I was supposed to collect their heads as proof. I would expect nothing less from the Horde.

All that got me pretty close to level 30, then I was on my way to the southeast when I realized it was late, so I logged. Next time I will attempt to finish off a couple more quests, then head back to Ashenvale and see about getting some lingering quests out of the way there.

I just love being able to teleport myself to any major city. It's so convenient. I don't have to worry about where my hearthstone is anymore. I left it in Ashenvale and just ported from Stonetalon to Undercity, then flew to Hillsbrad. No long flight to Orgrimmar followed by a zeppelin trip across the sea. Now I'm gonna miss being able to do that on my other characters.

I did manage to get turned into a zombie as well when I visited Thunderbluff, but I was quickly killed by the guards. That's about the only experience I've had so far with this pre-expansion event.

More Horde news to come as my Alliance characters are all parked until the expansion hits.

Dings all around

Shammy hit 60 last night, making her my fifth to get over that hump, and it finishes off my Alliance characters for now. I'll be waiting to send my new 60's to Outland until after the expansion and the new faster leveling is put in place.

Now it's time to go over to the Horde side of things and get some work done over there. These guys are all at a fairly low level, the highest being level 28 and the rest in their teens. That being the case, it's hard to keep their rested XP bonuses up all the time. They gain levels so fast that the lower level ones can run out within a couple hours.

I'm actually excited to see what my paladin can do. Ever since the patch came out all the paladins have been gushing about how much damage the retribution tree does, and all the other classes have been complaining about how fast ret pallies kill them. I was planning on leveling my pally last, but that might change now.

Of course my priorities all change as soon as the expansion hits and I roll a Death Knight, but I'm thinking that once I get out of the starting area I'll probably want to park him and build up some rested bonus before continuing on to Outland.

It feels sort of like cheating because my DK will be Horde, but I won't have actually leveled a Horde character to level 55 yet. That means right off the bat it will be my highest level character on the Horde side.

Sure it's not like I haven't leveled a character that high before, but those were all Alliance. Now I'll have to learn where everything is all over again, because I know there will be some differences between the two that I didn't even expect.

Things are going to get even more interesting in a few weeks.

Soon, very soon

The shammy is only a few bars away from hitting 60. Now all I have to do is turn in a few lingering quests that I've been putting off, mainly because they require a fair amount of traveling.

This will be easier said than done. First I have to make my way through zones I haven't been to yet, meaning I can't just use flight paths.

I also need to go to Winterspring, and not only have I not been there on this particular character, but I haven't done any of the quests for Timbermaw Hold, meaning I would be attacked on sight if I tried to run through there.

It looks like at this point I will have to run from Ashenvale to Felwood, do the initial Timbermaw quests, grab the flight paths, and make my way to Winterspring. Sure the quests are below my level and won't take too long, but I'm getting anxious to get to 60.

I'm rather proud of myself that I set such a lofty goal for myself and I will manage to accomplish it, with time to spare. This is really a game that you need to keep yourself motivated for, and setting goals like this helps a lot in sticking with it.

I remember when I first said I would get my hunter and shaman to 60 before the expansion, and at the time I didn't think I'd have a chance of making it. Now I'm getting over that last hump before I get there, and there are a still a few weeks left.

Actually it seems like everyone sets goals for themselves in this game. From raiders trying to collect badges or take down bosses, to PvPers trying to get their Arena rating up to the level they want.

The only advice I can give is don't set your goals so high as to be out of your reach. Sure it's good to strive to be better, but you have to make sure your goals are realistic. Going after a goal that you have very little chance of accomplishing can make you frustrated, and that isn't what you want, especially from playing a game.

On the other hand, picking something to easy isn't as rewarding. Pick something you have a chance of doing, but not something you know you can do.

In my case all I had to do was add a stipulation. Sure I could have gotten those characters to 60 eventually, but I set a time limit on myself which made it that much harder to accomplish. Now I will be getting there sometime in the next couple days and it feels great.

It's new to me

As I get close to finishing up the plaguelands, I'm noticing some quests that I never bothered with, or had never seen. There are also some quests I remember doing that I can't seem to find.

First there are a couple quests that send you into Hearthglen, the Scarlet Crusade keep in northern WPL. Those guys used to be elites, and on past characters I skipped those quests in favor of stuff I could solo. Now I find there are some follow ups that I never saw before, and it's sort of interesting to continue on the storylines.

I also remember doing some sort of quests in EPL that had something to do with the two Scourge areas (the one north of Light's Hope Chapel and the one just north of the Crown Guard Tower). I don't really remember what the quest involved doing, just that I went to those places at some point.

I did get one to collect skulls from those guys, and used a crystal on them to see if they were the kind I needed. This is a quest I don't remember doing, but it might be the aforementioned quest and maybe it was changed slightly. I don't know.

I noticed this as my hunter made her way through Silithus. All those quests that sent you into the bug holes were pretty much off limits to me. Whenever I saw a quest that involved elites I abandoned it. Now with the faster leveling and subsequent nerf to those elite quests all that stuff is available to me and I get to see what I was missing out on before.

I finally go Questhelper to work too. It hadn't worked since the patch, and I couldn't figure out how to fix it. There was no error listed, it just said it was refusing to run so it wouldn't corrupt my data files. Finally I checked yesterday and they had posted a new fix for that situation.

Apparently computers running Vista decided to move the WoW addon folder to a different directory. It was strange, because all the addons show up in both directories, even if I update only the one in the new directory. I guess this is for computers with multiple users as it means you don't have to update the addons for each user.

Luckily in the time I didn't have Questhelper I was doing quests I had done before, and pretty much already knew what to do. Strange how you become so dependent on this stuff, even though you were doing just fine before.

I remember contemplating whether to get this addon because it didn't seem necessary, I could find stuff. Now I need to have it. Having to minimize WoW every time you get stuck to check out the info on quests seems primitive when you've used Questhelper.

Right now I can't think of any other addons I need besides what I already have, but I'm sure it will come up at some point, and then I will become dependent on yet another addon that right now I am able to function just fine without.

Is that considered an addiction or just rational thinking that we should use tools that make things easier on ourselves. I'm going with the latter to make myself feel OK about it.

It gets better

You know, when I first started this blog I was very skeptical about how it would turn out. I basically figured that writing about WoW would cause me to burn out a lot faster than if I just played the game. I thought that if I had to think about the game any more than while just playing it I would get tired of it real fast.

Well, just the opposite has happened it seems. I think I'm actually more into the game now than I was before. Not that I really play more than I did, I just enjoy it more.

There is so much left for me to do in the game. At this point I have leveled 4 characters to level 60 or above, and one more will be to that point before the next expansion. That's quite a bit for someone who averages less than 10 hours a week on the game.

But I have four more characters to get leveled up, not to mention the level cap is going to be even further away.

The best part is that each character poses a different challenge. Sure you get into autopilot mode on those item collection or mob killing quests, but there are a lot of quests out there that require some thought.

Soloing an elite mob with a druid is much different than with with a priest. Crowd control is different. Druids and rogues can stealth through a lot of stuff while everyone else has to fight their way in. Many characters can't take much of a beating and have to keep mobs at a distance, while plate wearers can just charge in and take the hits.

I had a buddy to talk about WoW with at one time, but he quit the game a while ago, and between then and starting this blog I felt myself burning out. I think getting these thoughts out there, and knowing that at least a few people read them, are what has kept me from burnout.

It's not that I need approval or something like that, I just get to the point where I have these thoughts floating around in my head and need to get them out there.

By the way, the shaman is level 59 now and halfway to 60. Won't be long now. And I should have just enough rested XP to make it before I run out. I'm hoping to push through in my next session.

Shaman is back

I got to try out my shaman this weekend for the first time since the patch and the new talent trees. Let me just say that she is a killing machine now. Not only that, but there is almost no downtime. Remember when I complained about running out of mana? That never happens now.

Lets go over some of the talents and spells that make this possible. First is Shamanistic Focus. This talent now doesn't require a melee crit to proc, it is just a constant 45% reduction in the mana cost of your shocks. Not as big as the 60% it used to be, but being able to use cheaper shocks without waiting for crits is well worth it.

Next up is Water Shield. This is the mana saver. It not only increases MP5, but gives you a chunk of mana on each attack that hits you, using up one of its three charges on each hit. Not only that, but it doesn't cost anything to cast, so once your charges run out, just reapply. It takes a little getting used to keeping this applied, but even if I run out of mana in the middle of a fight I can apply it and get some back while I'm getting hit.

Lava Lash is a neat little talent. It gives you an extra little fire attack. Not a lot by itself, but it doesn't seem to interrup auto attack, and if you have Flametongue Weapon on your off-hand it will do a little extra damage. Every little bit of damage helps, and at only one talent point I'll take it.

Maelstrom Weapon is just awesome. You basically build up charges on each hit, each one reducing your spell cast time by 20%, and once you get 5 charges built up your next spell is instant (100% reduced). This applies to Lightning Bolt, Chain Lightning, Lava Burst, and any healing spell. Wanna put out some extra damage? Throw an instant Lightning Bolt. Getting low on health and a normal heal would take too long? Now you can heal instantly.

I can't tell you how much help this new stuff has been. I'm blowing through the quest that would have taken me forever a week ago. I'm getting beat on by multiple mobs and manage to survive with instant heals and ridiculously fast mana regen. I can't wait to hit 60 and try out some spirit wolf pets.

One thing I'm having trouble with still though is figuring out how to deal with a bunch of mobs. Stoneclaw Totem helps, but it only lasts 15 seconds, and sometimes that isn't even enough time to kill one of the mobs, let alone the other three or four.

Lots of classes get some kind of fear spell, or a way to keep mobs at a distance so you can focus on one. Shamans don't have much other than the short distraction of stoneclaw totem. Any other totems that could cause a distraction are taken out in one hit.

This is giving me trouble on the Tirion Fordring quest chain. After killing all those beasts in EPL he sends you to get an item from a grave. While searching the grave some graverobbers show up, one unique (who you have to kill and loot) and his four cohorts. They never get far enough away from eachother to not aggro the whole group, so you have to figure out a way to deal with all of them.

On my priest it was easy, just Psychic Scream and burn down the unique while they're running around, loot him and run. The shaman has lots of trouble on this one though. I haven't tried it since before the patch, and I have gained a level since then as well.

I'm hoping my new burst damage, along with the other new stuff I mentioned will be enough to take down the unique and loot him while the others are still distracted with the totem. This is going to wait until the rest of the plaguelands are finished up though.

I'm still not sure I'll get all the way to 60 here though, I'm almost to 59 now, but I know there are only a few more quests left to do here before all thats left are Strat and Scholo quests. Along with a few old quests that require some traveling to turn in I'm hoping to get there though. I may just turn 60 this week at this rate.

I've also noticed that Ebon Hold is now on the map in EPL. It's on the other side of Tyr's Hand, and that's still guarded by elites, but I may attempt to run through and check it out anyway.

Clarified

In my post about getting my new core hound I think I mentioned the trouble I had finding a boat to Darkshore (actually looking back it doesn't look like I mentioned it at all, but I was thinking about it while writing that post).

Of course, this is because I was under the impression that the boat that took you there still left from Menethil. Apparently they changed it to leave from Stormwind Harbor now. Not a bad change, but a little announcement would have been nice.

And why is there still no boat going to Steamwheedle Port? It seems pretty obvious, and would be very convenient for lots of people. I think the only problem is they have three neutral ports, and ships only go between two. We'd need a second ship to leave from Booty Bay, and that would require another docking point, which there isn't one. I'm sure they could find a way to put one in if they really tried though.

On that note, I think a neutral zeppelin from Everlook to Gadgetzan would be a great idea. I mean, there's a boat between the two neutral port towns, why not some mode of transportation between the other two that are land locked. Using flight points to get across the continents is brutal.

I didn't have much time to play yesterday, so I decided it was a good time to send my shaman in for some training. I got my Water Shield and ranked up my Flametongue Weapon so my off-hand will be up to par. I still haven't gotten to test it out yet, but I'm excited to see what she can do with all her new talents.

I also took this opportunity to travel to various places and turn in random quests that have been sitting in my quest log. I thought they were just going to give a little XP as the previous quests in the chains had given me a good amount already. I was pleasantly surprised when I got twice what I was expecting. I think the shammy is in a good position to hit 60 by just doing Plaguelands quests from now on.

I'm also contemplating what to do about hunter pets. Right now I have my cat still, and while she probably won't be used anymore, I still want to hang on to her. I have my core hound, which will probably become my main, and I have a turtle that I tamed a while ago. That makes a couple ferocity pets and a tenacity pet.

I'm thinking I might need different pets for different situations. The core hound will be for normal questing, but what about going up against an elite? Sure he'll do more damage, but will he be able to outlast?

I will be trying out some different things, but I'm thinking the turtle might come into play in some of the tough one-on-one situations. These guys are built for damage mitigation, and I don't mind a fight taking a little longer if I win.

As for multiple mob tanking, I don't think I'll run into it much unless I decide to go back to some low level instances for achievements. In which case I'll just tame a gorilla and take him in.

I'm not sure about cunning pets yet. It seems like they are more built for PvP, and I don't do much of that. Maybe if I get to that point I'll try one, but for now the other two types seem to fit my playstyle a lot better.

Now it's time for the weekend. We'll see if I can make some more progress.

Talent time

I usually do some research before putting points into my talent trees on new characters. I like to know where I'm going to end up and spend them accordingly, but it's a little different when you are already at a high level and your points get refunded.

My hunter went all BM up to the 51 point talent, and being level 60 that was the last talent. I also specced out the core hound (yet to be named), and hoping I made some good choices on that one. I went for stamina over armor, not sure how that's going to pan out, and pretty much spent the points in places that I think will complement the way I use my pet.

All the new spells I can use with her are going to change the way I play a lot.

The priest went shadow again. I ended up getting Dispersion, even though I'm not sure how often I'll use it for the damage reduction, but the mana regen intrigued me. I originally wanted to skip it and throw the rest into discipline, ending up with Divine Spirit, boosting my spellpower even more since I took the second to last shadow talent which I don't remember the name of right now. Actually I saw that Improved Divine Spirit adds spellpower as well, and I'm not sure how they compare. Truth be told, I'm not sure either talent is worth the points. Anybody have a better idea?

This patch also took away priest race specific spells. We all have Devouring Plague now, no more Starshards for me, and I guess I'm just going to have to get used to it. Holy Nova is now trainable, along with a few other new holy spells. I don't use holy much, so I doubt those will make a big difference for me, but Devouring Plague will replace Starshards in my rotation as an extra DoT.

The shaman is sticking with enhancement, and while I won't be able to summon spirit wolves for another few levels, I think she has a pretty good build that will fit into my play style quite nicely. I will be putting Windfury on my main hand and Flametongue on the off-hand from now on. That seems to be the way enhancement shammys are headed, and I never really liked Windfury proccing on my off-hand since it has a cooldown before it can proc again, meaning you could be losing a main hand proc.

Haven't respecced the druid or rogue yet. Druid will be feral of course, and I'm happy he's getting an out of battle rez, that cooldown was annoying. Rogue is up in the air as I don't play him much anyway, but I'm thinking he'll go back to combat. I haven't put much research into it yet though, and at this point I'm in no hurry to do so.

On the horde side I actually spent most of my time yesterday playing my warlock. She's now level 15 (up from 13) and will be speccing destruction until she hits level 50 and can spec for a Felguard, at which time I will switch it up. Leveling is so fast at these lower levels. It took less than two hours to gain those two levels and run her out of rested bonus.

I haven't respecced the rest of the hordies yet, but I have plans for them already. The mage will stick with frost, and I'm excited to see what all the excitement is about frost mages and how great they are now. The pally will go ret of course, and I will be looking to Blessing of Kings for some insight into talent builds since paladin trees confuse the hell out of me. The warrior will go fury, and I am looking to dual wield some two-handers, assuming it's better than one-handers.

I also plan on my death knight going unholy. I loved playing a necromancer in Diablo 2, and this seems to be the most similar to that. Somehow the couple names I wanted for him were already taken, so I'm still not sure about his name. Apparently lots of other WoW players also read obscure fantasy books. Who knew? I'll have to put some more thought into it.

I think my shaman is ready to make her way up to 60 now. I don't think her rest bonus is all the way to maximum yet as I don't think it's been 10 days since I last played her, but it's enough now that I can work with it. I better go make sure my ranks of Flametongue Weapon are up to speed first though, I think I skipped it last time I was at the trainer since I didn't use it.

Subtle changes

Everyone is discussing all the big changes in the new patch, but while I've been playing I've noticed some little things that I'm liking.

First, boat crews are back! Ever since they introduced this, and then took it away soon after, I've wanted this to come back, and I think I actually mentioned it in an earlier post. It was always weird being on a boat with no crew. Who was steering? Now they're back, and you can buy stuff from a few of them. I like it.

Let's see how many people noticed this. You know how when you jump underwater, you actually jump...underwater. Well not anymore. Now you will swim up, same as when you hit spacebar (or whatever your jump button is) while flying. It's a small change, but makes sense, and I like the fact that they went into so much detail as to make that change.

One I'm not sure about yet is pets in defensive mode attacking as soon as you do. When you fire a shot at something your pet will automatically rush forward to attack. Same goes for warlock pets, no matter what spell you cast. The problem is that sometimes you want the mob to come to you. I like having the pet in defensive for when I get ambushed, but I might have to think about going passive now.

There are also a bunch of new spell animations. Warlocks' Drain Soul comes to mind. I never really like that it looked exactly the same as Mind Flay, and now they don't. I'm sure there are a bunch more out there, and I'll find them eventually, I just haven't had enough time to play around with them yet.

Oh, I also noticed that flying between Tranquillien and Silvermoon you fly on dragonhawks now instead of bats. Bats are used for Forsaken flight masters, and it makes sense that Blood Elves would have something different. Do Draenei have something different too? And what about the Goblins in neutral towns? I'll have to check it out.

Hunters go crazy

As we all know, patch 3.0.2 came out yesterday, and with it came the ability for BM hunters to tame some very cool pets. It also means everyone will be fighting over those special pets that can only be found in certain places.

In my case it was the Kerken, the white core hound that lives on Azuremyst Isle. He's in a cave full of owlkins, and is only level 12, so any hunter able to get the final BM talent that lets you tame exotic pets will have no problem with him.

The problem is how many people have the same idea, and while it may be on the Draenei starting zone, there were a bunch of Horde there as well looking to grab their new pet. One Tauren hunter in particular showed up, but he had something different in mind.

This guy went by the name of LenzBenz (the B is a lowercase beta), and he proceeded to make sure that no one could tame the Kurken. How did he do this? Every time it respawned he killed it, and being level 70 on a level 12 it was a one-shot every time.

Oh sure we got some help killing the guy from some other 70s, and I think he was even pissing off the other Horde guys that were there for the pet too. This didn't seem to do anything but encourage him though because after being killed he would wait until respawn, rez, and kill it again in one hit.

I'm still trying to figure out what his motivation was. Did someone earlier on kill him during taming and he was taking revenge? Did he not want anyone else getting the pet? Was he just being a huge douchebag?

Whatever his reason, he was there for over 2 hours, just killing the Kurken every time it respawned. Actually I'm not sure how long he was there. He was there when I got there, and I stood around for a while until I realized he wasn't going to leave anytime soon, so I logged onto my other characters to see if I could figure out some new talent specs.

When I logged back in an hour and a half later he was still there. At one point we decided to let him tame the thing, hoping that maybe he just wanted it himself and thought he was entitled to it before everyone else.

No dice. He tamed it, told it to stay, and put it on aggressive, then walked away, but not too far. Now he just had to leave it there and it would kill the Kurken on its own. Sometimes he would run around the cave to make us think he left, then come in from a different direction when it respawned and kill it again.

We had about 10 people standing around at one point, Alliance and Horde, and one of them said they reported him, but I'm not sure it would do any good. I sure wish I could understand what he was talking out with the other Horde that were there. I know they were pissed too, but it would have been nice to at least know what idiotic reasoning he was giving them for why he was there.

I eventually gave up, as it was already way past my bedtime, and it's not like I needed it that second. I woke up this morning and logged in to a cave empty of players and the Kurken standing there waiting for me. I tamed it, logged out, and came to work.

Why must we be tormented by people like this? There was absolutely no way to stop him from doing it, and I'm sure it's nothing the GM's are going to bother doing anything about.

It's not even about how mad I was, but more that I just don't understand how you could spend hours of your Tuesday night just doing something to frustrate the hell out of people. That kind of mindset just seems foreign to me.

Well I tamed it anyway, although now I have to wait to try it out, but I'm hoping the frustration was worth it.

The time as come...

THE PATCH IS HERE!!!

OK, enough excitement, I haven't gotten to play it yet, and I can only imagine how long it's going to take to install it once I get home today. I'm so glad they let us download it ahead of time. I'm going to be struggling with my patience as it is, but if I had to wait to download it today too I don't think I'd make it.

I guess I can't really say anything about the patch yet, so I'll save that for tomorrow, or sometime later if for some reason I don't get to play tonight.

In other news, lets talk about talent specs, and more specifically being able to switch between two different specs. Sounds interesting to me, and is definitely something I would love to have on some of my characters, but given what stage of the game some of them are at right now it won't help them out much.

I think my druid gets the most benefit from this. I have always wanted to try out a boomkin, but I love being feral so much that I don't want to spend the gold just to try it out because I know I will be switching back.

There are more than a few concerns that I have about this being implemented though. I'm not saying I wouldn't welcome this change with open arms, but there are some things that would need to be looked at in detail to make it work seamlessly.

First, it may not happen to everyone, but different specs require different gear sets, and with my playstyle I really don't have time to go hunting for another set of gear. I'm hoping they can make this leveling friendly by giving more variety in quest rewards, giving us a chance to fill gear slots for many more builds. Other than that, maybe a higher drop rate on greens.

Next, what happens when you level up? I guess that brings into question how the spec switching mechanic actually works. If you just hit a button and it changes, then I guess you spend the talent point in one spec, switch and spend it in the other spec and you're done.

Along those same lines is, what happens to your action bars when you change specs? Some of those skills come from talents, and we all know that when you respec those certain skills disappear from your action bar. It would get pretty annoying having to rearrange your action bars every time you respecced.

Right now they have a mechanic built in that changes your main action bar depending what form you're in. This applies to switching to shadow form on priests, shapeshifting on druids, and changing stances on warriors.

I guess I'm just hoping they use this same mechanic when you change specs, as your main skills are probably going to change depending on which spec you're using, and hopefully your talent only skills will come back without having to drag them back on again.

I'm also hearing that they will make this spec change unavailable in arenas. Seems like a pretty obvious choice, as it would basically be changing your team composition in the middle of a fight.

I think the biggest impact will be for instances and raiding. No longer will your spec determine whether you get a spot. You can just say "oh we don't need more DPS but we need a healer? Let me get my healing gear then!" Even easier for shamans or priests since spell power affects damage and healing spells. I might even try out some instances myself at some point if I can just switch my spec to fill out a group.

I look forward to seeing how this works in the future, and I think it will make a huge difference, not only for me, but for people with any playstyle that want some extra freedom in the way they play their character. I just don't look forward to carrying around a second set of gear, my bags are full as it is.

Almost there...

New patch comes out tomorrow, and everyone seems to be buzzing about it. I've pretty much been talking about my plans for it over the past couple weeks, so I'm sure you're all tired of hearing me talk about it.

Well you're in luck. I won't be talking about that today. Instead I want to give my thoughts on some Blizzcon stuff, like D3 and SC2. Plus I got a lot done in WoW this weekend, so I think that deserves some discussion too.

First, Diablo 3 introduced a new class, the Wizard. This is not to be confused with the Sorceress from D2. Apparently this is more of an upstart magic user, who has gained power quickly and is very arrogant about it, abusing her powers with no regard to what others think about it.

Anyway, the Wizards looks pretty cool, the spell effects are awesome, and I'm so glad they stuck with the same Diablo mechanics of blasting through hordes of mobs rather than the MMO version of going one on one. I'm even more excited about this game now, but I assume we still have a while to wait.

Starcraft 2 had some big news about their development. It looks like they will be splitting the game up into three separate releases, one for each race, which will have a huge campaign (about 30 missions) for the corresponding race. It looks like in order to do this the releases could be as much as a year apart.

I guess they decided creating an epic storyline was more important than getting the game out quickly. The only question is how multiplayer will work. Usually the campaigns are sort of like training on each of the races, but when only one race has a campaign, will we still be able to use the others on Battle.net?

I'm thinking yes, because it would be a huge deal if you could only play one race until the next release. Many people will buy the game solely for the multiplayer aspect, and I'm sure Blizzard knows this already. I'm looking forward to how this will all come together.

Lastly, I made some real progress this weekend on my shaman. She made it to level 57, and after getting a few bars into it she was out of rested XP bonus. Well, I decided it was time to give her a break while she builds it back up again, so I traded all my cloth to my priest and made the final push to break 300 tailoring.

In the end I had to buy a few things at the AH that I would rather have gathered on my own, but I did manage to make it to 300, and then came time to make bolts of netherweave, and lots of them. By the time I was done I was at 323, and that was with some really bad luck at the end. I mean I know once it turns green you don't gain levels often, but I seriously made the last 15 bolts without going up a level. It was ridiculous.

It was at that point I realized I could make Netherweave Bags, and the recipe was still yellow so I would gain a few levels on them. Not only that, but my alts were still stuck with mostly runecloth bags and could use the upgrade. I ended up making 13 in all to go around to everybody that needed one, then I mailed them off. Now they're all outfitted with 16-slotters.

Having done all I wanted to do at the moment on my Alliance characters, I switched on over to Horde, specifically my mage. He's been sitting over in Ashenvale for a long time, and needed some change of scenery. Unfortunately he didn't get any as I had a lot of quests to get done there, but I managed to get almost all of them done and get him up to level 28.

I ended up saving a few of the higher level quests for later and moved on to Stonetalon, but in getting through Ashenvale I had managed to burn up his rested XP bonus as well, so I had to log him out. It was time to do some other stuff by then anyway, so it was a good stopping point.

I think I'll be spending some time on my warlock next time I play while I wait for my shammy to get her rested bonus filled back up, then I will be pushing her to 60.

Oh yeah, and after tomorrow I will have to respec everyone and get a new pet for my hunter. It's going to get interesting.

Patch soon

Next week the long awaited patch 3.0.2 will be here, and I'm looking forward to having some fun with it. I know this is not exactly a good thing for some people, but I think it's going to make my leveling a little easier from here on out.

First, my shammy gets to summon ghost wolves. How sweet is that? I never got to similar talents with other classes. In order for a druid to summon trees he has to go down the balance tree, but I stuck with feral. I never got a mage up to a high enough level to summon a water elemental and the shaman won't be high enough to summon her elementals for a while either.

I was a little worried about leveling a pally with the only good leveling tree being retribution, and even that wasn't that good. Well from what I've read it looks like it might not be so bad now. I'm not sure if it will still be boring compared to other classes, but I'm hoping it will at least make things go a little faster.

The warlock being able to turn into a demon sounds pretty cool. Only problem for me is my warlock hasn't graduated from the Ghostlands, and with the death knight coming soon it may be a while before I even get close to the level I need to get that talent.

First order of business for my hunter is to get a new pet. I will keep the cat around still, but it looks like I have some much better options now. I always wanted to try out a turtle, but I really do like killing things fast more than being able to outlast them.

I was sort of hoping that more pet families would be made available, but with each family having its own special skill, I think it leaves hunters more able to set themselves apart from other hunters.

I'm not too excited about the rest of the class changes. I really don't see anything jump out at me from them. I guess the mage getting Frostfire Bolt is interesting, and the druids getting specific feral talents for cats and bears will change things up a bit. Those seem like pretty small changes compared to some of the others though.

I guess it just seems like the rest of the class changes and talents are meant to streamline the classes and their corresponding builds. Blizzard knows what the most popular talents are, and it looks like they are starting to figure out which talents are really useless and are looking to change that to get some more unique builds.

For anyone who has done any research into talents and which ones to choose we come across many different reasons why a talent looks good, but may not be worth getting over others.

Many times they require too many points. A talent can be good in theory, but if it requires 5 points you really have to think about whether it's actually worth using 5 points on. In some of these cases the new talents have been lowered to only 2 or 3 points, maybe making them more viable.

Other talents would be very good except that they just don't give enough of a boost. In this case there are a lot of talents that have had their numbers increased, usually the ones that have to do with increasing by a certain percentage.

Some of the current talents just aren't good. They may have started out as a good idea when the game was made, but given how we have come to play the game, there are talents that just don't apply. Sometimes they would try to improve these talents by making them do what they do better, but given that they were useless in the first place it didn't really matter.

I'm noticing some changes to these talents again in the upcoming patch, but this time they are changing them altogether, and they might actually be worth taking now.

I'm being pretty vague here, but that's mainly because I am blocked from most WoW sites here at work and I can't think of the names of any specific talents, otherwise I would give some examples. Either way I'm looking forward to seeing what these new talents can do.

EPL slaughter

After turning in some leftover quests in WPL and killing some diseased animals I checked my quest log to see what I had left to do. Well, everything left was listed as a level 57 or higher quest, so I decided it was time to head over to EPL and get down to business.

I remembered this ethereal guy to the north of the bridge connected the two zones together, right outside the cave. He has a few quests, and since I need all the XP I can get, I headed up there. His name is Tirion Fordring, and he's basically the plaguelands version of Nesingwary.

I didn't pay too much attention to his story, but he basically wanted me to kill lots and lots of plaguehounds and bats. He also needs worm meat from those giant grub things. I don't ask questions, as long as I get some good XP out of it.

I managed to kill all the bats, and most of the plaguehounds I needed before it was time to log off. I basically left a path of death and destruction in my wake, but it's OK because they were just demon dogs and giant bats.

Those worms don't drop meat much, I'm thinking I'll have to take on some of the higher level ones as I seem to remember them dropping the stuff more often. I have to kill higher level plaguehounds anyway, and they should be close to each other.

Not very eventful, but with all the mobs I killed I did get a good amount of XP, plus I will get even more when I turn the quests in. Next time I will try to finish it up, then make my way to the Light's Hope Chapel to build up some rested bonus.

I'm getting pretty close to being out of the blue, and I don't want to level at the normal XP rate. I think if that happens I will switch over to a Hordie for a while to build it back up. I should still have plenty of time to hit 60 before the expansion. I don't see it taking more than a couple weeks, and I still have over a month left.

I also have some work to do getting my professions of to speed. I have some cloth to give my priest, and I think it will be enough to put her over the 300 mark. She has so much netherweave it's ridiculous, and when she can finally use it she will blow through the levels.

My druid is a little behind on leatherworking too, but I have been collecting leather with my hunter, and he should be good to go pretty soon.

I'm a little worried about my shaman's mining skill though. She still hasn't even hit the 225 mark so I'm stuck going for mithril until I get there. It's frustrating that you used to be able to go up a level every time you successfully mined a node, and now it's only once per node. It's becoming very difficult to get myself up to the level I should at be to enter Outland and begin mining right away.

Looks like I still have quite a bit of work to do, even after I get my characters to the level I want.

Midweek intermission

Haven't gotten anything done in WoW since this weekend, so I will be going a little off topic today. If you don't care about my other interests then don't read on, I understand.

First off, new anime is on the way. It's the time of the year that new shows are coming out in Japan, which means time for me to check out a few of them. It's pretty hit or miss, but I've come accross a few good shows this way (Law of Ueki, D. Gray Man and Claymore to name a few).

This year I will be checking out Kuroshitsuji and Casshern SINS. I don't really know what to expect from the first one, but I have seen the Casshern movie, although I'm not sure if it's even related. The movie was long and crazy, just what you expect from the Japanese, but the action scenes were pretty cool. I'll give it a shot.

I've been stuck in a rut in anime for a while, just haven't had time for more than my regular shows, but if these new ones turn out to be any good they might be added on. Also, the guys that sub One Piece have become sort of erratic on when they release episodes, so I don't even get to see a weekly episode of that one.

Aside from that, one of the softball leagues I'm in ended this week, and it won't be starting up again until next March, so that's one more free night a week for me. I was hoping this would mean another day a week I could work out, but last week I pulled a muscle in my neck and any sort of lifting makes it hurt.

This means I will have more time to do other stuff. The new Fall lineup of primetime shows just started, and I am getting into quite a few. This year the new shows I am adding are Fringe and Kath & Kim.

This is added to my already extensive list, which also includes The Office, Lost, 24, Scrubs, Battlestar Galactica, 30 Rock, Friday Night Lights and Heroes. Oh, and my girlfriend has to record her shows on my DVR, so I end up with Project Runway, Desperate Housewives, Ugly Betty, and Gossip Girl (although I only watch them when I'm forced to).

Yes, it's a busy week of TV watching, but with a DVR I get to skip the commercials, otherwise I don't think I'd make it.

Oh yeah, and I guess my extra free time will give me more time for WoW also.

Why still buggy?

It's strange, but I don't think Blizzard was able to fully get NPCs to attack each other correctly before TBC, and they don't seem to have bothered fixing it.

I'm not necessarily talking about those escort quests where the NPC you're protecting won't attack unless they are attacked (although that is very annoying too). Specifically I'm talking about the Scarlet mobs that hang out in WPL at the farms and attack the undead guys.

Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. It just seems completely random, and there are a few mobs they attack that just seem to keep bugging out and resetting. I was literally attacked by the same mob 4 times in a row.

I got into his aggro radius and he came running at me, so I did what any normal player would do, I started wailing on him. Well once I got him down to 10% he bugged out, evaded and ran back to where he started, but since I hadn't moved I was still in his aggro radius and he came back at me, with full health.

This happened 4 times, as I hoped to kill him one of the times, but I was never able to. By that time everything else had respawned around me and I couldn't move without aggroing something else so I just ran away and worked my way back in again. Needless to say I was getting annoyed.

I don't think it was a bad decision for them to leave that stuff in there even if it doesn't work right. I like the idea of the holier than thou Scarlet Crusade taking it upon themselves to bring the fight to the Scourge, it's just one of those things that Blizz could probably fix if they wanted to, but it isn't high on the priority list.

Another thing I have been wanting to see, and is finally being implemented from what I hear, is quests that actually change the world for you, which they are calling 'phasing'. Like you escort someone and if you go back he isn't there anymore, at least for your character.

Will they do the same for the old quests? Of course not, but it would be nice. I look forward to seeing how this turns out. I always thought it was a little weird to rescue some NPC just go back and see them back there again.

I guess we really can't expect any gameplay upgrades to old content until they are done making new stuff. The only times I've seen this happen is if a patch comes out and it makes something unplayable. I remember after one patch the furbolgs in Ashenvale would all spawn on top of each other, making any quest involving them impossible.

For the moment we're stuck with what we have until they get tired of making expansions. Luckily it's a great game anyway, and the new stuff they're doing makes it even better.

Continuing the flurry

Leveling seems slow on the shammy for some reason. I'm not sure if it's that the hunter has such an easy time killing things because of the pet, or if it's the fact that most of the quests I'm doing are at the same level or higher.

I usually try to do quests where I am a couple levels higher, thus making them easier and more quickly accomplished. In the case of my shammy, she's at a point where all the quests are at her level, or some of them even above. It's still much faster than my first time getting to 60, but the hunter just seemed to be able to blow through quests very quickly in comparison.

I pretty much finished up the Burning Steppes. There really isn't much to do there, and the orcs dropped medallions a lot more readily than I remember. I was getting stacks of 7-9 on each drop whereas on previous characters they seemed to drop very infrequently, and in stacks of 5 or less.

I also killed the big ogre and put his head on top of their hill. The dragon killing is so easy now that those big guys aren't elite anymore, and that was pretty much it. I headed over to Ironforge to turn in a couple older quests, then flew up to WPL.

The whole point of doing Burning Steppes first was to get a few levels so I could start WPL with the quests being pretty easy. Well I only made it a few bars into level 55 by the time I was done there, so while that was true for the first one or two quests in WPL, after those first two cauldrons I had caught up.

You can tell when they came up with some of these quests they expected a lot more exploration out of people. Did you know that each house at the farms where the cauldrons are located has a quest inside? I didn't on my first two characters, then they started showing the exclamation points on the minimap and I discovered quests that I didn't know existed. Gave me some extra XP, so I'll take it.

By the time I logged off last night I had completed the first three cauldrons, along with their respective farm house quests, set signal flares in Andorhal, and taken out the first set of Scarlet Crusade mobs.

On that note, that quests to kill that first set of Scarlet Crusade mobs is probably one of my most hated quests. This quest requires you to kill two each of four different Scarlet mobs, which includes Medics, Hunters, Mages, and Knights.

The mages and knights are no problem, you can find them at a barricade blocking the patch to Hearthglen. The hunters and medics are the problem. They are at a camp off to the side of the barricade so they are no problem to find, but they are placed so closely together that it is pretty much impossible to pull one at a time. The problem gets worse with the hunters because they have a pet as well, so most of the time you are fighting 3 on 1.

I have never figured out a good way to solo this quest. In the end you just have to figure out how to fight multiple mobs, and die a lot, or run away. With my Stoneclaw Totem I managed to make it through the quest, but I remember it being ridiculous on my rogue.

After all the quests where you can pull one mob at a time I'm not sure why this one was set up that way, or maybe it was a just something that ended up that way by accident. Either way I despise this quest, but since it's a chain that leads to a couple more, and I need XP, I had to do it.

I also managed to get ganked more than a few times. I'm not sure what level 70s are doing running around WPL, but this warlock had no idea DOTing me up and running off while I slowly died. Rather annoying, but I died close to the graveyard.

I'm getting close to level 56, and EPL will be next up. Now I'm a little worried about making it to 60 without questing in Kalimdor, but I think it might turn out that way. If it comes to that I'll probably do the furbolg quests in Felwood until I can go through the tunnel unharmed, then get through Winterspring and hopefully be 60 before done there. We'll see how it goes.

Announcements

First, all our honor points are not getting taken away with the release of the expansion. This does pretty much nothing for me since I don't have time for that stuff, but it's a relief for most of you out there who have been saving up. Hopefully not too many of you freaked out at the announcement that they would be taken away and used them all on stuff you didn't need.

Also, with Arena season 4 ending on Oct. 14th, it looks like that will be patch day as well. If you didn't read the 50 other times I said it, I'm excited for this patch. It will be almost as good as having a beta key...well not really, but at least I can finally play around with some of the new stuff.

Actually I think I figured out why I don't have a beta key, and why I will probably never get one. I don't play enough.

While Blizzard makes beta keys seem random, I'm sure it has something to do with how often the player actually plays the game. Why would you give a beta key to someone who rarely plays? They wouldn't provide much feedback, and that really doesn't help them get out all the bugs, it just clogs up the test servers with more players that aren't even there to help them out.

So for now I'll just have to be happy leveling my shaman. She's hanging out in the Burning Steppes right now, where I will hopefully get her to 56 before sending her up to WPL, then EPL to beat up on some undead.

Progress is slower for her than for my hunter, probably because I tend to use a lot of mana healing myself after fights, and eventually run out, and since I always forget to buy water I end up having to just sit there letting it regen. I can't just go from mob to mob all in a row without needing a little downtime every so often, I just need to make sure I have plenty of water with me to reduce that.

If an enhancement shammy is this mana intensive, I don't even want to know how an elemental shammy does it. I guess in that case you wouldn't be going for melee gear though, so you would end up with a bigger mana pool to get you through it.

Still, I rarely use anything other than shocks in fights, and only when the reduced cost buff procs. All my mana use comes from healing, so maybe I just have to suck it up and buy some water, because that mana spring totem doesn't regen that fast in comparison.

I sure don't do a very good job of sticking with the same topic for a hole post.

What to expect

Sometimes I wonder what people expect to read when they come here. I can definitely see how my blog name can be misleading. I'm not in a progressive guild as many may assume, or have even progressed very far into the game. Actually, the progression I'm referring to doing is leveling my characters.

I write this blog mainly to get my thoughts out there. I have no friends that play the game anymore, and thus no one to discuss it with. When I hear exciting news about it I can't wait to tell someone, but who am I gonna tell? So I talk about it in this blog and a few people read it.

I also don't put a lot of effort into finding out every detail about WoW. I don't know anything about being in a raid besides what I've read from other people. For me that stuff doesn't matter, I have fun just going through the quests on my way up the levels, and when I get bored of one character or meet a goal I set for myself, I switch to a different character.

I know a lot of people reading WoW blogs are looking for insight into the game, and I do provide that, but maybe from a different perspective. I provide insight from a very casual player, who tends to have little time to play, and even less time to do any research into the game.

I like to think I give a different outlook on the game. While most bloggers are talking about raiding, PvP strategies, and how to optimize your talents, I tend to give some pointers on how to keep the game fun, update you on my progress with all my characters, and hopefully keep you as interested in the game as I am without actually going into all the detail I see from other bloggers.

Not to say I'm taking a better approach, just different. I enjoy reading all the theorycrafting once in a while, or all the new updates to talents that just went into the beta. I just don't have time to do any of that stuff, so I stick with what I do have time for.

If you like reading this blog then thanks for your support, and if you don't, well, you don't have to read it. Just don't expect me to do much more than I've been doing, although I'm not saying it couldn't happen.